In many situations, application users may choose to run the same application on multiple devices. Such devices include, for example, mobile phones, tablet computers, laptops, etc. These devices may be used either concurrently or in isolation.
For example, consider the situation when a user is a salesperson that utilizes a CRM (customer relationship management) application. The salesperson may be using a mobile CRM client on his/her mobile telephone to contact a potential customer for a sales call. During the call, the salesperson may use the mobile telephone to access the CRM application to discuss the possible sales opportunities.
However, in the course of the call, the salesperson may realize that it is necessary to obtain much greater details regarding the opportunities than is efficient or convenient using a mobile telephone. Instead, the salesperson would like to utilize a larger mobile device (such as a tablet or laptop computer) to access the CRM application to continue the discussion of the sales opportunities.
Currently, when a user accesses an application from one device (e.g. mobile phone) and then accesses the same application from another device (e.g. tablet) the user is presented with two separate application states that are not continuous and have no knowledge of each other.
In the example above, this means that once the salesperson switches over to the tablet computer from his/her mobile telephone, the salesperson would need to manually re-navigate in the application on the tablet to get to the exact same state that existed on the mobile telephone before the switchover.
This type of behavior is significantly disruptive when the user is changing devices but needs to access the same place in the application on the new device.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved approach that addresses at least these problems with the prior approaches.